@kaywhyn One thing I've noticed whilst watching your LPs is that you very rarely, if ever, use Clear Physics Mode.
In case you haven't noticed, the urge to resist using CPM is deliberate and intentional. I pretty much play the levels as they're originally intended in regards to, say, hidden traps or to see where the trigger is for hidden exits. I don't mind them on occasion, and certainly they're fun when they all of a sudden trigger out of nowhere when you least expect it, but I will mind if they're used too much in a row. I'm quite cognizant that I can use CPM for a quick check of potential problems (steel, non-steel, background, etc), but again my resisting to activate it is deliberate. More than anything, it's pretty much all about familiarizing myself with the tilesets. There's many tilesets that I have yet to play levels on, and therefore the surprises that catch me off-guard is simply due to that: I am not familiar with the objects/traps of the tileset since I've never seen what they look like in a particular tileset that deviates from the usual appearance of one. Your tilesets in which you made your Lemminas would be good examples of this. I did wonder after all whether that's an updraft, since it looks a little different from the usual. More time on a level also means more time to take it in and appreciate the design and possibly even the puzzle itself. How do you supposed I got through United despite that it took me an entire year to completely solve? By being willing to sit through and solve them and taking my time, even if it means getting stumped and stuck badly!
You use what I affectionately call the "picture puzzle method," which basically means that you tend to spend a lot of time with the level paused and formulate as much of the plan as you can before executing it. Nothing wrong with that, of course; all the best solvers use this technique, and CPM is a match made in heaven for it!
Truthfully, I hate how I have the game on pause a lot when I'm LPing. I figure that viewers want to see the action, not hear me talk planning out the solution while the game is paused for a long time. Then again, I mentioned that I don't want to bother with video editing, since I'm no good at it. Instead, what I can do is simply work on making my videos shorter. I admit that I have a problem in that if I'm building momentum by having long solving bursts where I solve several levels in a row, why stop? At the same time, I should probably try using a stopwatch/timer when I'm recording, since I generally don't pay attention to the time before I start recording.
The "blinking unicorn" graphic (from Lemminas) is a good example of this (although, to be fair, since that graphic is animated, simply unpausing the level would tell you that it's an object! )
Yes, the blinking unicorn. Again, the best way to get around this is to simply put it "out of the way" where it won't interfere. In the same way I suspected the fairy was background, but most of the time you had it "out of the way" so that whether it's solid or background (it's the latter, as I found out in a level in the Pandemonium rank) was never an issue. Or, as you said, activate CPM to quickly confirm that it's background even though the blinking animation gives it away that it's background. However, keep in mind there's a lot of inconsistency in regards to whether something is background or solid. The clouds are a good example. The clouds of the Highland tileset are solid, but the clouds of the Shadow and Beach tilesets are both non-solid even though there's no animation. Again, best thing to do in this case is to simply put them "out of the way."
You're easily shaping up to be one of the best solvers on the forums, so maybe getting used to using CPM to speed up your game a bit would take you to that next level. I never thought I'd find myself promoting CPM, but... here we are!
Thanks for the kinds words, WillLem!
I also appreciate your comments on my LP videos very much, and I'm glad to see that you're enjoying them
Hopefully you're learning and taking some things away by watching/hearing my thoughts/solving process